Innovator
Eliot Burnhams
Pieter Bruegel

Born: around 1525 in Breda in the Netherlands
Died:1569

Education: Accepted as a master in the Antwerp painters' guild in 1551, he was apprenticed to Coecke van Aelst, a leading Antwerp artist, sculptor, architect, and designer of tapestry and stained glass.

Interesting facts:
I. Bruegel traveled to Italy in 1551 or 1552, completing a number of paintings, mostly landscapes, there. Returning home in 1553, he settled in Antwerp but ten years later moved permanently to Brussels.
II. He married van Aelst's daughter, Mayken, in 1563.
III. The name Bruegel was the name of his home town were he was born.
IV. He is now considered the most important Flemish painter of the mid 16th century.
V. He work almost entirely for private individuals .




Innovation

Bruegel was one of the first painters to paint landscapes in their own right and not as the back ground to the religious or historical themed paintings. He was one of the painters from the renaissance period. During the renaissance people started to look at the landscape with renewed interest. Before Bruegel painted , people would just paint religious paintings. After that people painted landscapes behind religious paintings but bruegle would just paint the landscapes.

Landscape with the fall of Icarus c.1558 ; Winter Landscape with a bird trap; The hunters in the snow;The harvestors all painted in 1565 are all good examples of his landscape painting. His paintings ussaly had a house on the left side of the painting and on the right he had a street that you could see down.

He would print some of his paintings so that his work could get around. I think this is also how landscape paintings became more popular.